Terminal Connection (17 page)

S
teve stood inside a perfect replica of the bank’s real lobby in Ticino, Switzerland. The windows lining the lobby displayed Mount San Giorloomedo. It loomed next to the Ticino River, which poured into Lake Maggiore. He stared vacantly into the water. The alcohol had worn off and the edge of his memories had returned. Shaking them off, he turned and approached the counter.

A woman teller smiled at him. “May I help you?”

“Yes, I have an account here that I need access to.” He heaped Austin’s second set of books, a pile of loose papers onto the counter.

The woman looked first at the stack of papers and then turned her attention back to Steve.

“Uh … can you help me?”

She leafed through the stacks of papers and then paused and asked, “Do you have an account number? Maybe we could start there.”

“It should be in there, somewhere.” Steve grabbed the papers from her hands and shifted through them. After a few pages, he found the spreadsheet and pointed to the account number Austin had circled in black ink.

“Oh,” she said, smiling. She turned to her virtual terminal. After a moment she turned back to him. “Then you’re Steve Donovan?”

“Yes.”

“I assume you have your social security number and your password then?”

“Well, actually Austin Wheeler made the deposits on my behalf. We work for the same company, Nexus Corporation. My social security number is 261-85-564E, but I don’t know the password.” He laughed nervously.

She held his stare a moment longer. Without smiling, she glanced back at the screen. “I see. You’ll still need the password. It’s a secured account.”

He handed the file back to her. “Well, it’s in there, somewhere. I know I’m a bit scattered, but this is a big account. Can’t you help me?”

“That is the exact reason why I can’t help you. If you can come back with the proper codes, I will be more than glad to assist you.” With that, the teller turned back to her terminal and logged an entry on the account.

He crossed the lobby and sat down on a bench. Riffling through the file, he scattered papers across the bench’s surface. After several minutes, he realized Austin was not stupid enough to place the codes in the file itself. He obviously had hidden them somewhere, but where?

“Damn!” he exclaimed. The information had to be written down. Without it, Nexus Corporation’s wealth was but a string of electronic numbers locked away in a computer, in an untouchable account. Perhaps Ron could help—he was going through Austin’s books—but Steve had no idea where Ron was at the moment. Though he did not want to confront Austin again, he had no other choice.

“Computer, duplicate the phaser.” A copy of the phaser materialized before him and he stuck it in his virtual pocket. Then opening a portal in the middle of the lobby, he stepped through, returning to Nexus Corporation.

He materialized at the end of a long table, its Formica surface flecking off at the edges and corners, exposing the particleboard beneath it. Disoriented, he gazed around the room. It had obviously fallen into disrepair. The paint was peeling from the walls and mildew stains spotted the roof, remnants of water leaks. This puzzled him.

He was in VR. Why would anyone design a room like this? Why was he here in any case? Had the Nexus malfunctioned? Steve walked to the one window in the room.

The window looked down onto a busy downtown street somewhere in the Orient. An endless stream of people paraded down the boulevard. Eddies of flesh clung to shopping windows while the ebbs and flows of the crowd carried its hapless occupants down the street.

He watched a lone man fight the current, trying to reach a shop upstream and just out of reach. After a minute, the man turned, resigned his will to the crowd, and followed the masses down the block. How often had he felt like that?

Steve saw the stages of his life recapitulated in the faces that floated by—a crying baby in a stroller, a boy with a lost expression as he looked for his mother, an angry teenager with his defiant orange hair. Yet even the teenager realized the uselessness of fighting the current of people. Then he saw an older man, bottle in hand, oblivious to those around him, drifting mindlessly down the center of the throng.

“Hello,” Vinnie said.

He turned from the window and found Vinnie grinning at the other end of the table. He had appeared out of nowhere.

“Please, take a seat,” Vinnie said.

Steve remained standing. “Why am I here?”

“Don’t get self-righteous. We know what you did.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When you shut down the site, you cut off the surveillance. We figured Austin bolted, so we stormed his house. By the time we got to him, he was convulsing. At first, as you hoped, we thought Syzygy had struck again, but then I downloaded the System Log of Austin’s Nexus.”

Steve shook his head. It did not make sense. Austin had been fine when he left.

“You seem surprised! I viewed the same logs on Austin’s Nexus that you downloaded at the crime scene; that’s how I know you did it.”

Steve’s mind whirled. He remembered handing Allison the gun. Did she shoot him? But why?

Vinnie smiled. “You don’t believe me. Why don’t we go to the Nexus Corporation’s VR server and download its logs. I bet your authorization kicked us out of the server. What do you think?”

She must have killed him. Steve motioned to press the exit button on his Nexus.

“Go ahead. I sent a couple cars to your home a few minutes ago. They’re probably there by now.”

Steve’s shoulders slumped.

“Austin claimed he knew who the killer was.”

Steve shook his head. Austin didn’t know crap. None of them did. He stared vacantly out the window. What a mess he had made with his life.

“You don’t know who the killer is, do you?”

Steve continued to stare out the window, running through the events of the previous week. He had lost everything.

“Well, that’s just great! We no longer have a lead on this guy. So you managed to indirectly kill a few more people. You seem to be real good at that, indirectly killing people.”

Steve felt a pang of guilt. Just an hour ago he had blamed Austin for giving Syzygy the opportunity to kill Brooke. He would have killed Austin himself if Allison had not stepped in; but hadn’t he done the same thing? The Nexus was his invention. If he had stood up to Austin, Brooke would still be alive.

“The only question I have for you is, how’d you kill Austin? What did you use to kill him?” Vinnie asked.

Good question
. Steve’s hand brushed his pocket and he felt the phaser inside it. Vinnie didn’t know. He had figured they had stripped him of any virtual devices he was carrying when they kidnapped him to this site, but they had not.

Steve became calm. In the last twelve hours, he had lost his daughter, his company, and now his freedom. It seemed only appropriate that he lose his life. The alternative was to live with the guilt, the knowledge that he had killed Brooke.

In one movement, he leaped out of his seat and pulled the phaser. At first he pointed the phaser at Vinnie, but only for an instant. He then he pointed it at his head.

“Don’t, Steve! We need you to catch Syzygy! How else can we do it?”

Steve answered, “Allison Hwang.”

“The director of DARPA?” Vinnie asked with a puzzled stare.

“What?”

“She can’t do anything. Only you can stop him.”

The strength left his legs. Steve set down the phaser on the table and sank into a chair. Vinnie jumped and swatted the phaser. It skidded across the table and slammed into the wall.

Steve spoke in a daze. “Allison was there. She used some modified paging software. She must have shot Austin after I left.”

“What did you say?” Vinnie asked.

Steve ignored him. As the head of DARPA, she could have ordered the recall at anytime. She could have saved Brooke.

G
oooooaaaaalllll! Goooooaaaaalllll! Goooooaaaaalllll!” The announcer screamed into the microphone. It was Friday night at the soccer match in Santiago, Chile.

Francil Alvarez shot a wry grin at Coach Mike Burns as he placated the crowd with a victory lap around the field, interrupting the game. The U.S.A. team had pulled ahead of the Chileans.

The coach regarded his recent recruit from Brazil. He was without a doubt the most prolific player on the field. Though gangly at six feet, he was strong and agile. However, his temperament and integrity were another matter. Mike Burns cringed at every antic on and off the field that Mr. Alvarez made.

Coach Burns heard a metallic clank on his virtual back as a player patted him in passing. Thanks to a robotic unit, despite pressing business duties, the coach was present at the game through VR.

“Uh, coach?” the assistant coach said.

The coach turned to see the assistant coach removing a ‘kick me’ sign from the back of the robot. The coach ripped the paper sign out of his hand and waved it like a trophy at the team lining the bench. “You think this is funny, don’t you? Damn it! Who did this?”

A couple of players bowed their heads, hiding their smiles while others turned and snickered. The coach turned back to the field in disgust. It was hard to appear menacing as a four-foot robot. Next time, he would get the Goliath robot model, then he could crush their balls if they looked at him sideways. Of course, working on the U.S.A. team, he had more limited funding than the Chileans. The board would never approve of such a large purchase.

The game continued. James Keegan, a Chilean, tripped up Francil on a routine slide tackle. Francil fell to the ground, writhing in pain and clutching his calf muscle.

“I don’t believe it! He’s trying to force a yellow card against Keegan!” The coach shook his head.

Two referees walked casually to Alvarez. They were growing tired of his antics. They stood over him as Francil screamed at them. He was not holding his calf anymore. They looked back and forth between Francil and the other player. Finally, after a minute, they brought out a stretcher. Francil rolled dramatically onto it, cursing and hollering. As they carried him off the field, the audience started booing. Francil decided to get up and walk to the sidelines where the medics were waiting. The cries from the crowd did not abate but grew louder. Francil made a slow three hundred and sixty degree turn, displaying an extended third finger to the entire stadium.

“Jesus, get off the field!” The coach screamed, but Francil was still too far away to hear. Finally, he limped to the sidelines.

“What happened this time, Francil?”

“It’s my leg. I had a flash of pain shoot up my leg after he hit me!”

“Francil, he didn’t hit you, he tripped you. It must be shin splints. Why don’t you sit down?”

“I think I’m fine.”

The coach shook his head.

“Really Coach, the pain is gone.”

“No, it’s still standing here in front of me.”

“Huh?”

“We don’t want to take any chances. This is your third leg injury in this tournament alone.”

Francil looked at the assistant coach for support, but he just shook his head, letting him know that he had pushed too far this time. Francil glumly turned and plopped down on the bench.

The game resumed and the crowd roared to life. After five short minutes the Chilean crowd was rewarded when their team scored another goal, tying the game at three all.

The assistant coach approached coach Burns. “Coach, we’ve got to let him play.”

The coach grunted.

“We don’t have a chance without him.”

Francil got up. “Come on, Coach! You know I can do it!”

“Sit down, Mr. Alvarez!” the coach said.

“No!” Francil said, remaining standing.

The coach gestured to the assistant coach. He nodded and they walked a few feet, out of earshot. “Coach, he needs to play. The owner has made it clear what will happen if we keep losing games.”

The coach glanced back at the bench. Francil was not there. He had followed them over. Turning his back to Francil, Mike stared at the assistant coach and said, “Okay, Mr. Alvarez, don’t disappoint me.”

In response, while the coach’s head was still turned, Francil planted a foot in the robot’s back, toppling it over. Then he ran out onto the field. The coach’s world turned sideways as he fell.

The referee blew the whistle.

“Goddamn it! You idiot, Francil!” He was fuming. “Wait until we notify the ref!”

“It’s okay,” his assistant coach said while righting the robot. “It was our throwin anyway. We didn’t get penalized.” Hollyfield, another player, came running off the field.

“A Goddamn hooligan!”

The assistant coach put an arm around the robot. “Mike, it’ll get better. He grows on you, you know?”

“Yeah, like jock itch.”

The game continued. Six minutes later, Francil scored another goal, again parading around the coliseum. After the starting kick a Chilean player kicked the ball toward Francil. He jumped and knocked it down with his arm. The referee blew his whistle and went after the ball. Francil reached it first and hid it behind his back as the referee approached.

Exasperated, the official yelled, “Get up!”

Francil put the ball down and sat on it. The crowd booed as another referee trotted across the field and Francil took off a cleat and shook dirt from it. The referees motioned Coach Burns onto the field. He walked to Francil as the fans jeered.

“This is just great, Mr. Alvarez.”

“I hate this country,” Francil said.

“I’m sure the feeling is mutual.”

“It’s not fair. I didn’t touch the ball.”

“Look, at this point I don’t care and neither do the officials. You’ve already managed to destroy any chance of returning to this game. Now it’s a choice between the sidelines or a Chilean jail.” The coach pointed to the security on the sidelines.

“They can’t do that!”

“Yes they can. This isn’t the U.S. of A. Here they take soccer very seriously.”

“What right do they have?”

“What right? It’s their country! They can do and will do anything they damn well want, you arrogant bastard! We’re just guests here!” The coach walked away. He stopped and faced Francil one last time. “By the way, have you ever seen the inside of a Chilean prison?”

Slowly, Francil stirred and got to his feet. He lumbered a few feet behind the coach, following him to the sidelines.

“Damn kid!” The coach muttered.

Another official sprinted toward the coach from the Chilean side of the field.

Oh great! Another confrontation
. “Mr. Alvarez.”

Francil said nothing.

“Francil!”

“What!” He jogged up and walked next to the coach.

“Do you see that?” The coach pointed to the approaching official. “He’s probably part of the security detail. If you don’t hurry up …”

“I don’t see anything, Coach.”

The coach stopped and waggled a finger at Francil. “Don’t try to mess with me boy! You’re in enough hot water as it is!”

“Really, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

The coach turned and watched the figure approach.
Now that was odd,
he thought. The coach watched the figure pass through one of the players on the field. The figure must be in VR, transposed on top of the images being sent to him from the robot on the soccer field. Obviously, someone had invaded his virtualscape.

“Damn it!” He swore. He was supposed to be alone! Obviously, someone had broken into the Apostle Company’s VR server. “Probably another fan. And the worst kind of fan at that—a hacker!” The coach grumbled.

“What, Coach?”

The coach ignored Francil. He could now see the dark figure clearly and was surprised. It was a very attractive woman.

The coach walked and Francil followed alongside. The figure approached the coach. “What may I help you with, Ms.?” The coach said, never breaking stride.

“What’d you say?” Francil asked.

“Cool your jets, Mr. Alvarez. I have a fan here with me in VR.”

The woman said nothing. She walked beside him and stared.
Freak!
The coach kept his gaze forward. She moved in front of him and walked backwards. He looked down.

She stooped and tried to catch his gaze.
Great! A persistent freak.
He stopped and met her gaze. “What?”

Her gaze did not waver. “Look ma’am. I’m in the middle of a game right now.”

She said nothing; she just continued to stare at him. It felt wrong. Her gaze was cold and detached.

His gaze dropped to the ground.
Enough of this!
Stepping forward, he brushed past her. He kept his eyes on the ground in front of him. The crowd roared. He glanced over at Francil. What was he doing now?

His feet struck sand and he tripped and fell. He rolled and looked back. A portal closed behind him. The crowd was not yelling; it was the sound of the ocean he heard.

He got up and dusted himself off. The coach was on a beach. A refreshing mist washed over him. Where was she? He looked around. She was nowhere to be found. He was on a white sand beach that stretched for miles in both directions. Just off shore, two dark rocks towered above him. Framed between them was the setting sun.

“Where the hell am I?” He said aloud.

“Tianya Haijiao, the southern tip of Hainan Island. It means edge of the heavens, corner of the seas.”

He whirled around and saw the woman had reappeared. She had striped her clothes off, revealing her beautiful full figure. Her gaze softened. Embarrassed, the coach dropped his gaze. “Look ma’am, it’s not that I don’t like you. Believe me, I’ll like you a lot more in a couple of hours after this game is done, but I have to get back there.”

Mike pressed the portal button. Nothing happened. “Damn it! What’s wrong now?” He could feel a headache coming on. It was turning out to be a bad day.

“Ma’am …”

“Call me Syzygy.”

He looked at her. “That’s an unusual name.” God, she was gorgeous.

She shrugged and approached him again. “So, do you like this place? It’s a place of rebirth. Many rebellions were born here: the communists a century ago and the Chinese liberation last year.”

“Ma’am, that’s all real nice, but I need to get back to the game. I’m remotely controlling a robot on the soccer field, and right now I can’t see or feel where I am or what I’m doing. This is a potentially dangerous situation. What if I accidentally walk into the stands? This robot can apply over a thousand pounds of force.”

Syzygy was next to him now and placed a seductive hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off. She obviously did not buy his argument. His robot was in the middle of a soccer field, not exactly a danger to anyone except Francil. And she probably already knew about Francil; not much of a loss. The coach rubbed his temples as the headache intensified.

Burns thought hard. Maybe he could exit, reenter VR, and portal to the game? The coach pressed the exit button. Again, nothing happened. He was really starting to worry. The robot was on the field and that would delay the game only until the officials could remove it. At most, that bought him a few minutes and those minutes were almost up. He needed to be there; he needed to lead his team.

His head really hurt. He pounded the exit and portal button to no avail. It struck him that Syzygy had effectively kidnapped him.
Kidnapped by a crazed fan.
He shuddered involuntarily. But what could she possible do to him?

Francil noticed the coach was no longer near him. He turned and saw the robot had fallen over on the field. In an uncustomary show of camaraderie, he jogged back to help. Reaching down, he righted the robot.

Abruptly, the robot swung, its solid steel arm striking him across the head. He stumbled back, holding the side of his head. It was wet. He pulled back his hand and found it covered with blood.

Another wild arm struck him in the groin. Francil moaned and collapsed to the ground. The robot fell down again and convulsed. From the sidelines, the assistant coach and his teammates ran onto the field.

“No! No!” the coach screamed as they approached.

“Coach! Control yourself,” the assistant coach said.

“Man, Francil looks bad,” another player added.

Francil blacked out.